I want to tell you something about this Gospel. This
matinal Gospel is not only a recounting of sacred history; it is also a type or
a template for the Christian life. It is an example of how we should
live, and what we should expect! For spiritual edification, we can look
at this story in an allegorical way and glean much benefit from
it.

This story shows very clearly the path of the Christian
life. The two apostles of the 70, on the way to Emmaus, were very
disheartened, they were frightened, they were beat down, but they were not
without faith. They did not understand (they did not believe that Christ
was risen you know), but in some way they still had faith and the desire to
know our Savior and serve Him.

So, our Lord meets them on the way. Imagine this
picture! Two disheartened, frightened men are walking in the heat of the
day, to a city that is a full day’s journey away, no knowing really what
tomorrow would bring, but certainly suspecting that it would bring the point of
a sword. Our Lord comes to them, and speaks to them on the way, and they
don’t see Him and don't know Him. Their eyes were holden that they
could not see Him.

This is the way that it is for us so many times, brothers
and sisters. We walk, on a long journey on the way, and many times we do
not see. We only know by faith, we only know by our sure convictions, and
something that is in our heart that warms us, and we know that we are following
the true path. And, even if we cannot conquer a sin, or don't know the
purpose of this or that, or the reason why something is happening to us or to a
loved one, we still walk on the way.

This
is the way that Christ walks. We must walk with Christ! We must be
in the way in which He walks, just like the apostles, just like the blind
men[1].
This is a long way, and the day is indeed far spent before God fully reveals
Himself to us. This will be at the end of the age, but a foretaste of
this revealing, a true "piece" of it, as it were, is in the breaking of
bread. Our Lord enlightened His two disciples in the breaking of bread,
and they saw Who He was. To this day, he is revealed to us in the breaking of
bread, that is the Eucharist, but we realize this distinctly only after we have
walked many miles with Him, with faith.

What happened? The day was far spent, the sun was
setting, and they were tired. It would be a long and dangerous trip back,
and there are robbers on the road, and what did they do? They made haste
to go back, taking hours and hours, arriving in the wee hours of the morning,
way past midnight, and the other apostles were up, who said He has appeared
unto Simon; He is risen. And they corroborated this with their own
testimony.

The two disciples were Luke, who wrote this gospel, and
Cleophas, who was the brother of St. Joseph the Betrothed. He wrote with
conviction, just like St. John wrote, who said "what I say is true."[2]
He wrote this way because he saw, and he believed, and he experienced and he
believed. This seeing and experiencing can only be accomplished when we
may a great effort to walk in the heat of the day, struggling against our hot
passions.

This gospel is a deep mine. We can extract many golden
nuggets from it, and they will make us rich, because they will show us how to
live. Even in the midst of what is wrong with us, it shows us how to
live. It shows us what will happen if we follow on that road and on that
journey. It contains historical fact, but more importantly, it contains
spiritual fact. It is what God will do to a man. He will enlighten
him, and make him able to see, over the course of time. God help us to be
on this road until the end of our life, so that we would see, in the end
completely and clearly, not in a glass darkly, but face to face, crying "Abba,
Father", and being called "friend". God bless you.